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I’m In the Tank for M. Night Shyamalan
Trap is unrealistic, lacking in thrills, and a stunning example of just how masterful the writer-director’s twistless storytelling can be.
I couldn’t care less whether (to name just a few complaints) the dialogue is sufficiently realistic or the portrayal of serial killers or policework is accurate or if Shyamalan spent too much time spotlighting the burgeoning talents of his daughter Saleka, who plays the pop star Lady Raven, at whose concert the police are hunting for Cooper. That’s all of his movies, really; you just swap out the part after “disguised as.” Shyamalan makes moral tales in the manner of one of his heroes, The Twilight Zone ’s creator Rod Serling, whose work involved overtly clever elements (like a twist ending) that fade from the mind after first viewing and are replaced by deeper pleasures. Consider The Village, whose ruling patriarch is a Bruce Wayne who retreats instead of fighting: He responds to the murder of his billionaire dad by starting a walled community in the Pennsylvania woods, nestled within a wildlife preserve, modeled on 19th-century agrarian life, held together by a mythology of monster attacks, and protected from outside discovery by bribing the federal government to prevent flyovers.
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